Well, now that I am under the 24 hour mark (18 hours or so according to my countdown widget), I'm pulling things together. I will be getting a BlackBerry Pearl 8130 on Verizon, and I'm really excited. It's going to be quite the change from my e815 that I have right now. Since I'll be able to download apps now, I'd like a few suggestions. I'm going to download Opera Mini, Google Maps, and Viigo as well as the bPhone theme, but otherwise I have no clue. Here's what I'm looking for:

~IM Client (Possibly use the Jabber workaround, anybody gotten it to work well?)
~Skype Client (only text is needed, and I believe there is a free one somewhere?)

I'd prefer to use free products first, or at least do a trial as this will make a dent in my account since I don't make that much money at 16. What are some other suggestions you might have?

Also, is there an RSS reader that allows downloads of podcasts and the like?

JiveTalk is really your best choice and hundreds of other threads on this board will confirm that. Look no further, just get it, pay for it and use it, and don't look for free ones as they just plain don't work well. You will regret trying the free ones and get JiveTalk in the long run anyway.BeeJive :: JiveTalk mobile messenger - instant messaging to go

Skype, I can't recall offhand, but look around the Aftermarket section, you've been a member here quite a while, you do know where the search button is...

And, if you look around this 8100 section you'll find several essential app/must have app threads.

JiveTalk is really your best choice and hundreds of other threads on this board will confirm that. Look no further, just get it, pay for it and use it, and don't look for free ones as they just plain don't work well. You will regret trying the free ones and get JiveTalk in the long run anyway.BeeJive :: JiveTalk mobile messenger - instant messaging to go

Skype, I can't recall offhand, but look around the Aftermarket section, you've been a member here quite a while, you do know where the search button is...

And, if you look around this 8100 section you'll find several essential app/must have app threads.

Good luck, enjoy and have fun!

Ok, looks like JiveTalk is the way to go. I didn't know which was necessarily the best (JiveTalk or IM+) as there is some debate, but looks like I'll be spending a crapload of money on software for the Pearl. Haha.

The Skype client that I was looking for is iSkoot, in case somebody would like to know. All I had to do was add "Free" in front of "Skype Client for BlackBerry" in the search term in Google. Why am I so stupid sometimes? Haha.

Thanks again, and looking forward to becoming addicted to the BlackBerry at such a young age.